Silent Rhythm
by MuddledMusings
Summary: The day after the world ends, life goes on.  Sequel of a sorts to 'Hot as Hell,' which you might want to read first.  Rated for brief language and angst up to your eyeballs.  Gen.


This is the sort of/kind of sequel to "Hot as Hell." I think this would probably make a wee bit more sense if you read that first, but it's not necessary. However, this WAS written with some intended contrast between the first fic and this one, which may be lost if you don't read the other first. Also, fanfiction . net is making me angry by getting rid of breaks intended to clearly set off paragraphs - not worth off usings a line, but still important. They were mostly there for effect, so you should still be able to read the story without a problem, but it's ticking me off anyways. Hopefully none of the infliction will be lost. With that in mind, enjoy...

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Silent Rhythm

_The day after the world ends, life goes on…_

Dean wakes to the steady beating of his heart. It pounds in his ears with the rush of blood, and he closes his eyes to the dawning light seeping through frayed curtains. His sleep muddled brain searches in the darkness, reaches out, struggling to comprehend why the silence pressing down on him isn't right. He listens to the rhythm of his breath for a moment, brings his hazy focus to settle on the steady ins and outs, the solitary sound that echoes in the room – the solitary sound, the only steady rhythm, the only breath. Then it's there on the tip of his tongue, the front of his mind; there is no other life in the room. He's alone. Dean's up before his eyes are open.

He stares at the other bed – the bed nestled against the wall with a pillow placed innocently atop it and the covers pressed smoothly to the mattress. For a fleeting moment, he panics, and then he presses his palms to his eyes and tries to ease the clenching of his heart. Dean's hands slip downward and settle over his mouth as he presses his lips together and tries to settle his breathing back into a steady rhythm. He can almost see the lingering impression against the mattress, the indentation of the pillow where a head should rest. If he closes his eyes, shuts off his mind, lets himself fall backwards, he can see it. His eyes flicker open, and reality settles over him.

He wanders over scorched and scratched wooden floors to the kitchen. By some grace of God, he manages to start the stained, lopsided coffee maker, and as he listens to its humming, he gathers up a cracked bowl and expired cereal. A moment later, he's settling down at the table as his chair sways beneath him. Dean spoons a mouthful of stale flakey-puff-some-things into his mouth and watches the curtains from the window swirl with the hot breeze. His mind travels to the lake just down the road, a lake of cool life, of free nights and afternoons, of stinging memories and harsh truths. He shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

His father is there before Dean is half way through the bowl, hair still damp with the steam and heat of a shower. He expertly uses one hand and the roll of his shoulders to let an old flannel shirt drop over his head. The other hand he occupies with retrieving a bowl for himself and then collecting a cup of now hot coffee. He settles across the table from Dean, and with the spread of a hand, stretches a newspaper across the table. Several minutes pass of intense study, but years of practice and _what must be done_ have lulled the Winchesters into an easy routine, and just as Dean is swallowing the last of his cereal, John speaks.

"Nothing new, so I figure we'll head out as soon we can." His voice is steady and straightforward, no room for question, no room for hesitation. Dean's brow shoots up and then back down just as swiftly. The abruptness surprises him. The sudden change of location with reality still weighing down and denied memories so fresh in their minds is unexpected, and yet it seems logical. It is the only reasonable course of action. Winchesters don't look back.

"Yes, sir," he says, and that's the end of it.

They gather their things, and within the hour, John has finished the mandatory paperwork for the landlord, and they're shoving bags into the impala and John's truck. Dean doesn't count the bags, doesn't make sure they have everything. He's sure it means they'll leave something behind, but he knows there are some things that are already gone, won't be coming back. Counting would only remind him, and Dean's trying not to remember. Instead, he wraps his fist around the thick cloth of the bags' handles and stacks them one by one into the trunk. It's painfully simple, the entire proceeds of the morning. They do everything at a sort of hypnotic pace, a silent beat to their movements. They're making a conscious effort for it to feel mind-numbing, to feel like they've done it a thousand times before, like now is no different than any other.

Dean's hands grip the wheel. There's obnoxiously loud music pouring out the speakers at him, and he purposefully doesn't turn it down when his ears begin to ring. He lets his mouth move effortlessly to the lyrics and drums his thumbs on the worn leather like this is where he wants to be, like this is what he wants to be doing. It's simple and easy. It's the way it should be.

John calls after two hours of driving to say he needs gas. They pull into a rundown convenience store two minutes later, stop in the restroom, grab some snacks that look as though they might be edible, and then they're off again. Another two hours, and they stop for lunch. It's an old, worn diner, but it looks more like it's well-used than well-beaten, and that's good. It's simple, and it's just like every other they've ever seen.

They settle into a booth – John on one side, Dean on the other (just like every time before). John orders a chicken something or other. Dean orders a cheeseburger. It's a typical meal. It's nothing special, nothing strange. It's the way things have always been, and neither of them says anything to suggest otherwise.

"Where are we headed?" Dean asks as they wait impatiently for their food. He slurps on a coke, lets it wash down his throat with the taste of the day (of all the yesterdays and all the tomorrows).

"Alabama," John says simply. He pulls a torn newspaper clipping from his pocket and slides it across to Dean. "Couple of disappearances and two confirmed murders – it's a small town. Not much there. If it doesn't pan out, there's another possible hunt about forty miles north. Figure one of them is bound to have something."

Dean unfolds the neatly crisped edges of the paper, reads it, and then nods. "Why'd you think it's our kinda gig?"

"The disappearances seem to follow the lunar cycle. Not full moons necessarily, but still a lose trend. The murders don't make much sense though."

"Huh," Dean says as he passes the paper back to his dad. The statement is followed by a gaping silence. John folds the clipping back up while Dean stirs his coke. Several beats pass; John takes an audible gulp of his water, and Dean twirls a straw wrapper between his fingers awkwardly.

Their food arrives, and they busy themselves with eating. It's a welcome substitution for the silence because silence isn't normal. It's something they don't often experience. It's the change they're avoiding.

They're back on the road within twenty minutes, and after a time, the afternoon sun turns to dusk. Suddenly, Dean finds the music still gushing towards him to be an uncomfortable sound that breaks the solitude of his surroundings. He clicks it off and stares at the looming expanse of road before him. Fields whisk by, and his mind seems to haze over with the blurred edges of the road. Dean forgets where he is, what he's doing, instead focuses solely on the road, the black pavement rolling beneath his tires, the steady rush of wind and motor that wraps around him, but the wind dies down, the motor's only one whisper in the world, and it's oddly quiet. He turns his head right to face the passenger seat.

Nothing.

His head whips back around with dangerous vigor, and he wants to smack himself for forgetting, even just for a moment. He hates that he let himself forget, and then remember, and then react like _that_. The silence is that much more real.

Their dinner passes much like their lunch, and only a few hours after getting back on the road, they pull up to a motel. John checks them in and then comes back to help Dean drag the few necessary bags to the room, a single room with two double beds – just big enough for two grown men. They fall asleep still consumed by the silence that has stalked them throughout the day, and Dean's skin tingles from the lack of breath beside him.

He's decided he hates the silence. It's surreal, and not talking about it hasn't lessened the reality; in fact, it's steadily become _more_ real, and Dean hates that, too. He doesn't mention it, doesn't mention that he hates it because he knows his dad is trying to fight off the memories, suppress the aching scars left by words and the sound of a slamming door. His Dad doesn't want to talk about it, and Dean doesn't exactly want to _talk_ about it either, not really. He's never been into _talking about it_. That was always…

So they don't talk about it. It hovers between them as the missing piece and the lack that chips away at their cracking masks, but they don't talk about it because for John it's too harsh and too painful, and for Dean it's just entirely raw and…untouchable. It's the just one of the many things he can't seem to place in this simple existence (because they're still making that conscious effort for a _simple existence_). He doesn't know why he wants to talk about it when he so clearly _doesn't _want to, and he doesn't know why he can't seem to figure out how he feels about things or people or life anymore. There doesn't seem to be an explanation or a reason or a feeling for anything, although it all seems to relate to _that_ and come back to…

They talk about the hunt. They talk about ammo. They talk about salt and holy water, and after a few days, John even tries cracking a joke about this or that and the priest who said something witty. Dean attempts to laugh, but that too sounds harsh in the silence, and he clamps his mouth shut firmly. They go on not talking about it.

After weeks of carefully avoiding _that_, John seems to decide they've got to at least accept it because he says, "Did everything go alright?"

It's so abrupt and so stark with avoidance that it shouldn't make any sense, but really it's the only thing that _has _made sense in weeks. It makes perfect sense that this is the only way the subject would ever be breached.

"Yeah," Dean says as his eyes trace the grain of the wood in another diner in another town.

"No problem with the bus?"

"No."

"You made sure…"

"Yeah, Dad," Dean says because suddenly he's finding that he truly _doesn't _want to talk about it. Talking about it hurts more than thinking about it, and Dean can't even handle that.

"Okay," John says, and they go back to not talking, except this time it's a little different. John's pushing for conversation. It's clear to Dean. He's trying to fill the gaps and the voids and settle into a routine that _isn't like that one_ but _still feels normal_. John talks quite a bit now. Dean still doesn't. He doesn't mean for it to happen, but he never feels like he has anything useful to add or something necessary to say or an interesting comment to make. He doesn't mean to re-induce the uncomfortable silence, but it happens anyways.

"Dean," John's voice calls out one night as they sit on the ends of their beds, flipping through books and print-outs from the local library. Dean looks up from his own stack of papers.

"Yeah?" he asks.

John looks at him, clenches his jaw a little, and then pushes the book in front of him away. Dean swallows uncomfortably as he realizes that his dad isn't about to discuss the hunt. "Dean, son, are you okay?" It's not entirely tactful, but it has enough generalization behind it that Dean can brush it off.

"Fine," he says as he goes back to pursuing the papers.

"You're not talking much…"

"Not much to talk about," Dean says without looking up.

"I know that you…"

Dean jumps from the bed. "I'm going to the bathroom," he says, and he doesn't look back. He heads across the rough carpet as fast as his legs will allow and slams the door behind him. He cringes at the noise and listens to the sound echo off tiled walls, in his head, in his mind, his memories. He listens to the echo of another door in another town, and hates himself again for his reaction, but he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to think about it. He slips down the wall of the bathroom and presses his head to his hands. He doesn't want to think.

Half an hour later Dean lets himself out of the bathroom. He moves the papers from his bed, strips to his boxers, and climbs under the covers without glancing at his father. The bed is cold, void of any human warmth. Beneath the blankets Dean is consumed by the silence of the night and his own steady heartbeat. There is no heat radiating from beside him, no comforting breath to which he can match his own, but Dean doesn't think about that. He can't.

It's been a little over a month since it all started (stopped) when his cell phone rings. John's out getting this or that, and Dean fishes it out of his pocket to stare at the screen. He's been getting texts for weeks now, but they're easy to ignore, easy to push to the back of his mind, to pretend that they have no effect on him, that he doesn't care. Now the caller ID is telling him what he's been trying to forget. He can't decide which he prefers to do, answer and fall back into what he's aching not to recall, or throw the phone at the wall. He answers.

"Hello?" he tries desperately to keep his voice steady, but the voice that greets him matches his own hidden vulnerability. If he hadn't known it so well, he might not have noticed, but he _does_ know it, knows it better than his own, knows it better than anything, _had known_ it better than anything.

"Hey, how've you been?" Dean presses his lips together and fights his brain to come up with a response, fights through the mess of nothingness to say something, anything, to break the silence.

"Fine," he says finally. It's stupid, but it's not silence.

There's a pause on the other end. "That's good. How's Dad?"

"Fine."

"Where are you?"

"Pennsylvania."

"Huh…" Another moment of stillness passes, and Dean hates himself yet again. He hates that for weeks, weeks he's yearned for this, a voice that is familiar and soothing and makes him feel real again, and yet he _didn't_ want it, and when he finally hears it, he can't even seem to think. He shakes his head. Something simple, say something simple – anything. Just fill this silence and make this work.

"How's school?"

"Good. It's great actually. Everyone's been really great here."

"Your classes?" Dean asks just for something to say.

"They're tough, but they're good. I mean, I've only got a few that have started so far, the rest aren't until fall, but I already feel like I'm finally _learning_ something…"

"How's your roommate?" There's a silence on the other end – a pause, and Dean instantly regrets he said it, wants the silence back. The simple question offers unprecedented pain, and Dean cringes.

"Okay, I guess. He's not overly loud or anything. And he's nice enough, good sense of humor, but, you know, he's not _you_."

Dean stills. He blocks out the comment because to think about what it entails, to think that maybe he's missed, to think that maybe he's not the only one who's feeling like this isn't right, well, he can't think about that. "But you're doing good?" Dean asks, and it comes out more as a weak whisper than anything else.

"Yeah, Dean, I'm doing well." They exchange a few more words, and then he shuts his phone and holds it loosely in his hand. He stares at it, just stares for a moment, and he's not quite sure why. Some foolish part of him thought that maybe a voice, gentle and rhythmic and everything that Dean has ever known, that a voice could be enough to sustain the part of him that's empty. He'd been wrong, of course, because now all he can remember is what isn't. All he can seem to recall is what isn't here, and it's driving him mad. For weeks, weeks, ever since he found out what was taking place, what was going to happen, what wasn't going to be, ever since he found out, he'd been dancing around like some sort of damn fool trying to make the most of everything, and _damn it._

It hadn't made a difference. Trying to fill the gap in advance had done no good. Lining the last moments with silver and gold and all the happy memories he could make for himself had only stalled the inevitable. He's still sitting here, an absence pressing down on him. Dean stares at the phone. He turns it over slowly in his hands. His fist clenches around the phone as his gaze intensifies for a moment on the wall, and then he's reeling back his arm. For one moment, one moment, he's going to throw it at the wall, not care if his life line breaks or if he puts a whole in the plaster of this shitty motel. He doesn't care. His fingers tighten around it evermore, and he's going to throw it. The phone rings.

Dad says he'll be home in ten minutes. Then they're heading out to the next town. Dean tries to remember how long they've been in _this_ town, but fails and forgets about it. They move on.

He's in another town talking to another Bob or John or Mary-Something, and he's so completely focused on this hunt that he can't think of anything else. He can't think of the past or a sweet breeze playing over a summer lake. His mind isn't replaying the details of old laughter, stale in his memories, or of eyes lighting up just from _being_. He's not dwelling on what isn't, only on what is, and that means this hunt, that means reading each line of this worn out novel with a furious intensity, and maybe he has to read and reread lines here or there, but so what? Dean's got the summary down pat, and if tomorrow he doesn't remember what he read today, that's okay. So long as he isn't thinking about the prologue, the prequel, it'll be okay. The aftermath and epilogue don't matter either, he'll focus on this page, and maybe he'll make it through.

In the diner that day for dinner, his dad snaps his fingers in front of Dean's face, and, okay, maybe he doesn't know as much of what's going on as he'd like to think. Doesn't matter. Long day, long week, long whatever, and he's just trying to cope with it. It's not his fault that the words of the book and the rhythm of life are slipping over his head.

He's discovered that focusing on _something else_ is harder than it looks because everything he tries to think of _instead of that_ brings him back around to_ it_. As a result, he's taken to not thinking at all. Dean's taken to letting everything pass him by with the words and the rhythm, and he's taken to falling asleep to the silence that pulses in the night. He's begun drawing circles with his finger in the grime of a bar counter, writing and rewriting the names and dates of victims on napkins and receipts, picking at the scars and scabs and wounds that won't heal. Dean's rubbing at gashes that just keep on bleeding.

His phone blinks at him every now and then, but he can't bring himself to talk when his Dad is leaning over his shoulder with that anxious look in his eyes, and so he waits until he's alone. Dean traces the buttons on the phone before he presses them. His fingers hesitate to let the pain (of nothing) seep in (more than it already has), but longing and weakness pull his ear and mouth to the phone, and before he knows what he's doing, it's been answered.

"Dean?" Dean closes his eyes to the sound of the voice and tries to pretend that he's not talking on a phone. In the darkness behind eyes squeezed shut, he tries to catch the wide eyes of a child peering at him, eyes that hold unrelenting trust and dreams of _forever_.Creativity was never fostered in him as a child, however, and instead he opens his eyes to see an empty motel room, cold like a tomb with frost settling over him.

"Hey," he says in a cracked whisper.

"I've been trying to call for ages. What's up? Nothing's wrong is it?"

Neither Dad nor Dean has been seriously injured recently, but damn it, what's it matter? Of course something's wrong. Something's been wrong for going on two months now and _damn it_. The world's going to hell (it's already there), and fucking _of course _something's wrong. "Everything's fine. We're fine."

"Well…good. So, um, what've you been hunting?"

Dean's voice falters suddenly, and he doesn't know if the names he traced on the napkin in today's restaurant had been from this hunt or the last. What _has _he been hunting? There was a girl he interviewed. Her two brothers died. Or was it her uncle? What had they concluded was going on rampage? _Was _it a something? He remembered reading up on a curse. Or was that the last town back? What was the last town back? Where was this town? Huh.

"It's a poltergeist."

"Oh, yeah? Just the one?"

"Yup, it's no big deal."

"Close to getting it?"

"Yeah…"

There's a pause on the other end. "Dean, dude, are you okay? I mean, even when I was like eight you were giving me detailed descriptions of everything you saw, and…"

"I'm fine," Dean snaps. He cringes at the sound of his voice.

"_Right_, 'course you are. Look, I…"

"_Fine_," Dean repeats. There's another silence.

"Are we okay?" Hurt and fear is laced in the voice, and Dean's hate for himself increases tenfold. "Last time I saw you I thought we were good…well, of course you weren't going to _really _be happy about it, but…Dean I thought maybe this could work. I need to know, are we okay?"

Dean rubs his forehead because he hates this. He really, truly hates this, but sometimes pain and ache and longing and bearing it all in solitude was inevitable. For Dean, it is not 'sometimes'; it's a way of life. "Yeah, dude, we're fine. Why would you think we weren't?"

"You're acting weird."

"No, _you're_ the freak, geek-boy – in case you've forgotten." There's a sigh from the other side of the phone, and Dean can hear the reassurance in it. It's unfair, using the distance to get a way with lying, but that's the way it's going to be, just like all the other times (he'll bear it all in solitude).

"Great, I've got to go, Dean. Paper due tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye." There's a click and the line goes dead, dead like the world and this tomb Dean resides in, dead with the rotting of an old life, a false life. Dean stares with the phone still pressed to his ear. It slips slowly from his face until it rests in front of him, stretched in the palm of his hand. He flips it shut.

In the morning when he wakes, he blinks at the walls and searches his brain, tries to remember how he got here because he doesn't remember going to bed. He doesn't remember a good five hours worth of time, but he figures it doesn't matter much because he still can't remember what _state_ they're in, so whatever. The again, he doesn't exactly care what state their in anyways because the only person that counts is in California, so what the hell difference does it make where _Dean _is? It doesn't.

He's shoved the phone to the depths of his pocket because he can't bring himself to actually leave it in a dumpster somewhere and forget about the person who breathes into the other end. Besides, there's always the possibility that Dean will actually, truly be needed, and he can't leave that to chance. Instead, he ignores the bulk in his pocket and focuses on the road again. He tries to remember the names of the towns on the signs he passes, but it only lasts for about ten miles before he starts forgetting why he's even bothering. There's no one in the passenger seat, and it doesn't matter where he is (because he's not in California).

When he meets up with his dad again, they discuss their next hunt. Dad asks him for opinions; Dean just nods and grunts and pushes the food around on his plate, hoping it gets him past the scrutiny of an ex-marine. It sucks for him that it doesn't. His dad orders that they're pulling over at the next motel they find, and then Dean's receiving more orders to shower, eat, sleep, repeat. It's good. Orders and routine – it's good. It's simple, and Dean can do that. It doesn't require too much thinking, and so it doesn't hurt quite as much. Dean can do that.

A few days later (or was it a week?) they're still in the same routine. Dad barks orders, Dean follows. It's the same as it's always been, but it isn't because they're not orders to _jump, shoot, kill, run, stay (watch your brother)_; now it's only orders to _eat, sleep, answer, breathe, drive, shower, live_. It's the first time in his life that he's had trouble following orders, but he manages for about another week (or was it a month?) until the orders change again. This time, they aren't so much orders as pleas.

"Dean," his father's hand is on his arm, and Dean finds himself once again perched on the edge of a bed, racking his mind for the faintest hint of how he got here. "Dean, you've got to stop this." The words are spoken in a soft whisper, and they swirl around Dean to join the fog of thoughts (and nothing) colliding in his mind. "Please," he begs as he kneels in front of his son. "I know this is hard, Dean, but you've got to get through it. I need you to let me help you here."

"No," Dean's words are sharper than his mind, and his head jolts up, voice brimming with fury and betrayal. "I don't need help. I'm _fine_."

"You're not fine, Dean. You don't talk anymore. You don't eat unless I force you. You just don't seem to care about anything, and that's not okay, that's not _fine_." John's eyes search for Dean's, but Dean is quicker. He averts his gaze determinedly to the floor beneath his feet, beneath his dad's knees. "I know that this isn't a little thing, Dean, but it's not the end of the world." Dean's gaze lifts from the floor, but the words _you're wrong_ die on his lips and are lost. The sound that comes next is a gruff whisper, a broken, impossible sound from the lips of his father. "Dean?" He's addressing a child, a young, scared child, and Dean is sinking into his own skin to become that weakling. He is wrapping around himself and drowning in his own fears, his own loss, his own blood from the wounds that keep reopening (they just won't heal).

John sighs and draws himself back up to his feet. Some part of Dean registers the sagging of the bed beside him, the weight and the heat now within inches of his side. His dad leans his elbows against his thighs, drapes and weaves his hands together loosely between his knees. He studies the ground for several long moments before speaking again. "I can't even…I know that what you're going through isn't like anything that I'm dealing with, and I'm not going to try to pretend I get it. That would be stupid. I just…Dean, when you were four years old you had all the responsibility of the world dumped on top of you, and God knows that _I know_ that's hard as hell. It's not something you just get over. In fact, it's really a miracle you turned out as well as you did, given that I seemed to screw up so much, but you need to know…you didn't fail. You didn't do anything wrong. You had no influence over this, and it doesn't mean that now you're somebody different than you were before." Dean chews his lip and shuts his eyes, shuts his mind to the world that has betrayed him and left him lingering in the dust of false promises and dreams, lingering in the dust kicked up by a bus bound for Palo Alto.

"Dean, there was nothing that was going to keep him here. You were the only reason he would have even _blinked _at the idea of staying."

"And I wasn't enough…"

"_NO!_" John slips off the bed again and kneels before his eldest son. His hands are clamped tight around Dean's knees, voice firm and hoarse but laced with concern and compassion and _truth_. "You were _more _than enough, Dean. You gave him everything he ever needed. For every time I wasn't there, everything I never did or said – you were there. I hate myself for it, but half the time I think you're the parent I never was." Dean looks up, his gaze locks with his father's, and the pain of it allslips off his tongue.

"He's not coming back. You told him not to come back."

As Dean presses back the throb in his throat, John bites his lip before speaking. "I said a lot of things I didn't mean, so did he." _You didn't_ hangs in the air between them, and John presses forward. "He went to college, okay. I don't like it, and you don't like it, but he's gonna get a job and a girl, and that's what he's always wanted, so that's good, right?" Dean can hear the forced optimism in his dad's voice. It matches his own thoughts perfectly, matches the way Dean has chased himself in circles for wanting the best and wanting safety and wanting a family. "He's gonna be okay. I've been telling it to myself everyday for the last four months, and we're gonna be okay, too. You're gonna be okay. You've got to be." He looks at Dean, squeezes his knee. "Dean, he wants the best for you just like you want the best for him. This," John waves his hand vaguely at Dean, "is not the best. Let's just try to make this work. Can you do that for me?" Dean's silent. "Can you do it for Sam?"

He's still a child cowering beneath the shadows of past pain, but his father is looking at him with sincerity and suspended hope, so Dean allows himself to be drawn up by large, loving hands. Suppressed tears prick his eyes and slip down his cheeks as he is clutched to a chest. There is one, firm arm wrapped around his back, and although his own grip feels meek in comparison, he clings to his father, feeling as lost as the words that do not escape his mouth – _for Sam._

_

* * *

_

The hot rays of the sun are beating against his back, the heat of life and the world brushing over his skin. Dean hovers amongst the crowd with fists shoved to the depths of his pockets. Just down the street is a glaring sign. He doesn't look at it, doesn't need a sign to tell him where he is. With the Californian sun blazing against his skin and the connections he feels to _here _and _now_, he knows _exactly _where he is. Dean's in the only place that matters.

He moves swiftly down the street, eyes trained on nothing but the flash of shaggy brown hair and a lanky form that rises just above the others in the crowd. Hunter's instincts guide him through the swarm of people, pulses, and heat, allowing him to focus his mind entirely on the boy (man) moving little more than three steps ahead of him.

The looming frame disappears into a little café, and mere moments later, the man reappears with a coffee – and a girl. She's a gorgeous blonde plastered to his side, head tossed back in laughter as he grins down at her. Dean's mouth betrays him as it twitches, corners rising up to crack the dust that's long since settled. Alright, his baby brother isn't doing too badly. They sit down at a table outside the café, and Dean slips to the shadows of an awning to study them through paned glass, railings, a locked iron gate that he cannot, for once, climb over. His hands curl ever so slightly in his pockets as he surveys the easy laughter of his brother, the carefree line of his shoulders, the way he has whole heartedly embraced Real Life.

The girl laughs at all his jokes, and his little brother frowns a little and sips his coffee when she says something important. She smiles and glows while he seems content to bask in her light, and Dean cannot help but feel as though he has gained a peace of mind and a lost a sense of self by coming here. Dean's reluctant smile is a shadow of what he'd hoped for, and what had he hoped for? He doesn't rightfully know. He had not planned on revealing himself. This brief interlude between hunts had been a one and only chance, a moment to glimpse and heal; he really hadn't expected much. It was not as though people generally waltzed down the street proclaiming they were homesick. Dean sighs and wills himself to find satisfaction in his brother's apparent happiness.

He watches for several more minutes, an outsider looking in at the forbidden. They drop their coffee cups in a nearby trashcan, and Sam peels off his jacket, revealing a worn blue shirt, just beginning to lighten at the bottom. Dean blinks several times and tries to clear his vision, peers at the shirt and attempts to remember (really remember) when he'd last seen it. His mind is flooded with the image of a little apartment just down the street from a lake, laundry in a basket by a bedroom door, life swirling around him in the whisper of reassuring breeze. He remembers a past life, one in which he lived for the moment and in preparation of the future, one in which silence was rare and heat was a constant, and there was a breath to steady his own. Dean stares at the shirt and remembers, realizes it wasn't one he missed that time he refused to count. He realizes that he hadn't lost it in some other life, hadn't been careless and left it beside a lake, hadn't left it to sink to the bottom of a sea of lost dreams. He steps from the awning, still focused on the shirt and the girl and heads tossed back in laughter, and then he's being thrust to the ground.

"Oh, oh, sorry," flows towards him in a frantic, rushed voice as Dean searches to locate its source. He identifies a girl splayed across the ground as she scrambles back to her feet. "Sorry, I wasn't watching, I was just, well…" She glances over her shoulder, towards the girl and the youngest Winchester, and Dean has to stop his eyebrows from shooting off his forehead.

"You were people watching?" Dean asks with a bemused smirk.

"_No_, well, okay…yeah. Technically I was, but everybody does at some point, don't they? What were _you _doing? Never mind – it doesn't matter. I wasn't doing it in a _creepy_ sort of way. She's my best friend, and, well, it's a first date, you know? I was just really hoping it'd go well. He's so great, and she _really_ likes him, so yeah. Sorry. I'll just be going." She waves to him idly and dashes off down the street. Dean stares after her and then turns back to the couple.

Trust his brother to pick the crappiest t-shirt in his wardrobe (Dean's wardrobe) for a first date. God, if he was going to steal something of Dean's to take with him to the Real World, he could have at least picked something that wouldn't completely turn _off_ women. What the hell is he supposed to do if someone actually finds out that the fugly thing is _Dean's _shirt? Dean's mouth curves into a slow grin as _sentimental value _and _sap _and _total girl_ sweep through his mind in one fluid stream. He turns to head back down the street (and steps past the iron gate, the lock, the glass). Dean lets himself focus on the hum of the pavement beneath his feet, the drum of footsteps, the (true) laughter of the world around him. If he strains his ears hard enough, he can almost hear the steady beat of his brother's heart, the rhythm of his breath pulsating with the life of Palo Alto. He breathes in, deep and full, and tries to match his heart to the imagined beat. The world has ended, but life would go on – Dean will make sure of that. Life will go on because that's the way his little brother would want it to be, and Dean will bear anything for Sam.

* * *

A/N: I beat it with a stick. I whacked it with a sludge hammer like the impala suffering from Dean-angst. It killed me, and I killed it, and at least two plot bunnies later, finally, somehow, it wound up here. This has been weeks in the making, even longer if you count the time it's spent spinning around in my head. Even when I thought that _maybe _it was done, I was reluctant to post. It hasn't quite become what I envisioned, but I guess you can't control a fic forever. You can give birth to it, spoon feed it from a jar, coach it through the beginning years, but eventually you've just gotta let it live its own life. If you're lucky, you'll rub off on it somehow. Hopefully I rubbed off. And now that you've suffered through my words of wisdom...let me know what you think, please (of the fic, not my crappy life lessons). Thanks! 


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